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The 't' sound being dropped before an 's' sound is somewhat new to me. I never heard that growing up, but I heard it a lot when talking to younger people (20s) in Texas. I doubt it will ever sound right to my ear.
In other contexts, of course it's been turned into a glottal stop for a while. The word-initial aspirated 't' sound isn't going anywhere.
Here's a personal admission about off-putting (at least to my ears) regional dialects. I've been trying for at least two decades to rid myself of yer and fir in place of your and for. I've made great progress, but it still creeps in occasionally and gives me away as a southern Ohioan.
It's standard American accent, that's probably why you don't hear it. Words like international (pronounced innnashanal) and button (pronounced ba'n) are good examples.
I don't think so. I'm in Northern Ohio, and those pronunciations only started about 10-15 years ago. Before then, I never heard words pronounced like that, by any social class or ethnic group, but now it is much more common, infecting maybe 15 percent of people I speak with or listen too.
As far as what the OP's mentioning, I remember it being emphasized in the movie "Clueless," where they had Brittany Murphy's character dropping the dentated "T" and using a glottal stop. It was meant to indicate that her character, the "new girl" at the rich high school, was lower class.
It's so funny - Tai in Clueless was my first thought when I started reading this thread. I tried to find an example in the limited number of clips available on YouTube but couldn't. That movie is 20 years old already - this isn't a new thing.
And even at the time (watching the movie as an upper Midwestern high schooler myself), I was hard pressed to think of anybody where I was who talked that way. I think I just chalked it up to "probably a SoCal thing."
Where I grew up, (some) people might way "warsh" instead of wash, but they call Elton John "Elton," not "El-in."
Dropped Ts could be the reason I have a trouble understanding some younger people's speech. I thought it was because many have high pitched voices.
OTOH, maybe I'm just an old geezer. I do say all the Ts in intercontinental.
People without training in linguistics often think the way they talk is different from the way they actually talk.
If all the people who say they "pronounce" intervocalic "t" listened to a recording of themselves they would likely understand the difference. For example, the consonant sound in the middle of the words "latter" and "ladder" is pronounced the same. It's called a flap d. The only way you can tell the difference is that the length of the preceding vowel (I'm not talking about the so-called Long A or Short A here) is longer before the voiced consonant in "ladder".
If you pronounce all the "t"s in a word the same way, with an aspiration the way you would at the beginning of a word, you're doing it wrong.
Glottalization of t's, especially after back vowels or consonants (as in "bottle" or "mountain"), has been going on for centuries and isn't going away.
Quote:
Originally Posted by joe from dayton
It has nothing to do with being a snob. There is a proper way to proununce words, and there is an improper way to pronunce words. Being wrong is not an "evolution" -- it is ignorance.
Someone who pronounces every t as a hard t (or whatever you call it, I'm no linguist) sounds wrong and severe. This thread got me to go and listen to George Plimpton and William F Buckley and while they may have had more pronounced "t's" at the and of words (by a little bit,) they certainly didn't have hard interword post consonant T's in their speech.
I would say that if you pronounce Dayton "Day-Ton" you're doing it wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by IDtheftV
I've noticed people in their twenties and younger always say words like getting as ge'ing and putting as pu'ing where the ' ( apostrophe ) is a sort of guttural sound that you make if you leave you mouth open and let out a pulse of air. Get it becomes Ge' it and put it becomes pu' it.
I don't notice any different when the 'T' is at the beginning of a word or at the end of a sentence, so "Take it away." and "That's all you get" is the same ( "Tha's all you get. )"
I hear this with phone operators, cashiers, and even TV meteorologists to name some people I've noticed doing this.
It appears to me that that language is morphing and this sound is going away.
It's sort of like listening to people talk in movies made in the 1930's and early 1940's. You can understand the English language just fine, but the way of speaking would really stick out as odd today.
Am I the only person noticing this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by PeachSalsa
People with an education and in a professional role speak properly. 'Nuff said.
I've noticed people in their twenties and younger always say words like getting as ge'ing and putting as pu'ing where the ' ( apostrophe ) is a sort of guttural sound that you make if you leave you mouth open and let out a pulse of air. Get it becomes Ge' it and put it becomes pu' it.
I don't notice any different when the 'T' is at the beginning of a word or at the end of a sentence, so "Take it away." and "That's all you get" is the same ( "Tha's all you get. )"
I hear this with phone operators, cashiers, and even TV meteorologists to name some people I've noticed doing this.
It appears to me that that language is morphing and this sound is going away.
It's sort of like listening to people talk in movies made in the 1930's and early 1940's. You can understand the English language just fine, but the way of speaking would really stick out as odd today.
Am I the only person noticing this?
I have two children who are young adults, in college. My profession puts me in close contact with many people in that particular age group. I have not heard this.
Americans and Australians would tend to say "putting" like "pudding" rather than "pu'ing".
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